Killer Shark
by Dreamweaver393
Summary: After the events on "Batman Assault on Arkham" Killer Frost and King Shark come back to life to fulfill their ship. I don't own any of these characters and I make no profit from them. Rated MA for adult language, violence, and possible sexual content.
1. Chapter One: Bait

This is my second attempt at a fanfiction and I really hope it's better than the first one, which I intend to fix eventually, but I recently saw the animated movie "Batman: Assault on Arkham" and I got into shipping Killer Frost and King Shark or Killer Shark as I like to call them, hard. I really like their dynamic, they both seemed like loners and misfits even in the super-villain community and although I don't try to downplay the fact that they are depraved cold-blooded killers, I like the idea that they might work well together, be friends and maybe even more than friends. Sadly there are very few Killer Shark fanfictions, and that is why I decided to write my own story. I gave it the MA rating because my story contains adult language, violence and eventually might have a sex scene or two.

I don't own any of these characters nor I profit in any way from them.

First Chapter

BAIT

Killer Frost had been laying low for months now, since the whole Arkham debacle, where reports of her death had been greatly exaggerated, which suited her purposes just fine. Avoiding the big cities and their resident supervillain and superhero counterparts communities and opting instead for the back roads, southbound, hopping from a one horse town to the next, like a skipping stone.

Most supervillains she had noted, were attracted to cities like Gotham, Metropolis, Star City and such, like moths to a flame, mostly because that's where the big game was, big stakes, big scores and although most of them would never admit it, they all wanted a shot at becoming an established foe to a Leaguer, ideally to a powerhouse like Wonder Woman, the Flash, the Bat or the Boy Blue.

It's so sad how some of these clowns lives revolve around some other clowns, to the point of actually bragging about how a Batman or a Green Lantern kicked their butts, like that made them special or something.

 _"Way to dream big, losers."_

They all want a seat at the cool kids table and that makes them reckless and predictable, not to mention pathetic.

She on the other hand, never cared for things like hitching her wagon to some lame do-gooder with a cape and a god complex, no, she was a different kind of animal, with different motivations...and was very cool by her own means.

The great thing about being a perpetual outsider is that it gives you perspective and from where she stood she could see the writing on the wall, clear as a neon sign, it read:

"No vacancy"

Most superheroes, the ones that mattered anyway, had a fixed roster of foes for years now.

Take the Bat, for example, he had his city, his gimmick and his rogue's gallery of nut jobs, and it's not like any wannabe with a mask and a ray gun can just walk off the street and get to hobnob with the Joker and arch The Bat.

No, in truth most supervillains are not that super to begin with and most of them end up being cannon fodder for a big time cape or arching some two-bit hero, and for what? A chance at being taken down by some famous cape? Validation for their life choices?

 _"I swear, some of these starstruck losers are worst then groupies."_

she thought bitterly every time she crossed paths with one of them.

Now, that's not to say that she wouldn't jump at the chance at taking one of those lame Dudley Do-Right's out in a second, and not even for the street cred or some ego trip, but because someone needs to remind them that they are nothing more than the costumed band-aid solution to the inherent chaos and violence of human nature…

 _"And because it's fun as hell to tear them down and bring them to their knees._

 _They parade around like they're better than everyone else, just because they wear their underwear on the outside, fly around, and because they enforce the rules of a mediocre and repressed society, they're supposed to be looked up at and emulated. And if you don't fall in line and ass kiss with the rest of the toadies, you are labeled a 'menace' and hunted down like vermin…!"_

"Oh, well, it still beats commuting to a nine to five every day of your life just to pay off an adjustable rate mortgage."

Or at least that's what she told herself now, in her holding cell.

She felt sick, weak and sick and cold and wanted nothing more than to stay curled up on the cot forever, but she knew that the more time she stayed like that, the worst it would get, up to the point of falling into a torpor.

 _"Okay, Louise, nap time's over, it's time to get up, so...get...UP!"_

Slowly, she stood, on wobbly legs, like Bambi learning how to walk for the first time, and steadied herself with her back to the concrete wall, her eyes still closed she concentrated on just breathing without throwing up.

Who would've thought that the sheriff's department from bumble fuck county would have the equipment necessary to bring down someone like her?

"Oh, well, live and learn…"

She tried to shake off the drowsiness from her mind and collect her thoughts.

 _"Pull yourself together Louise. First of all, you need to get out of this cell. They haven't processed you yet in all of the commotions, so they don't know who you are, if they did, there would already be some_ cape _here to collect you, so you need to move and fast, before those swamp rats figure out who you are."_

And just like that, a scheme started to hatch in her mind.

After not too long a while she heard footsteps coming down her way, and she knew it was a deputy coming to fetch her to get her booked and then run her prints…

 _"Yeah, like that's gonna happen…"_

The steps stopped in front of her cell and she heard a woman's voice yell in her direction:

"ALL RIGHT FREAK, IT'S TIME FOR YOUR PHOTO SHOOT! TRY ANYTHING CUTE AND I'LL CRACK YOUR HEAD OPEN!"

The deputy emphasized this last part by running her nightstick against the cell's bars loudly, but Killer Frost didn't move from where she was, crouched over the stainless steel toilet bowl, where she appeared to be wretching.

"I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU'RE WITHDRAWING FROM, HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK!"

The deputy was doing her best to act tough, and maybe to the local drunk tank frequent flyers and lowlives she was scary, but Killer Frost had a finely tuned ear for fear, and she knew that this woman was scared of her.

 _"Well, that just won't do for me right now."_

"ARE YA DEATH OR JUST STUPID?! I SAID, I WANNA SEE YOUR FUCKING HANDS!"

 _"Okay, here we go…"_

Killer Frost looked up, slowly, like she was too weak to lift her own head, bleary-eyed, tears running down her cheeks…

"I-I think there's something wrong with my...baby." She gasped while she lifted a shaking bloody hand from between her thighs.

"Plea-please, help my baby." She pleaded sobbing and reached out with her bloody hand towards the deputy, before she collapsed on the concrete floor, holding her midsection.

 _"C'mon, c'mon, take the bait…"_

There she waited, for what seemed like forever, before she heard the distinctive sound of keys rattling followed by the satisfactory sound of the cell door sliding open, then hurried steps and…

"SHIT! MA'AM, CAN YOU HEAR ME?!"

Frost looked up, dazed and confused, barely opening her eyes.

 _"Shit, she's wearing protective gear...okay, time to go for broke."_

"Puh-hel-help...don't let my baby...die, puh-" Cue the seizures...

Frost flopped around the floor like a freshly caught carp for a few seconds before going completely still and letting out one last eerie, pained moan.

 _"C'mon, just think about the 'baby'. C'mon, take the bait...C'mon, I don't wanna go back to-"_

The sound of equipment being removed in a hurry was followed by the touch of a warm hand on her neck, searching for a pulse.

"Shit, shit, shit, don't you die on me! We're gonna get you some help, you hear?! Just stay with me, STAY WITH-"

Frost's eyes shot open and before the deputy knew what hit her, she grabbed her hand and pulled the woman toward her, pressing her cold lips against her's, holding onto her like she was a lifesaver, which she really was, until every ounce of body heat was consumed and the deputy was nothing more than an empty, frozen husk on the floor.

"BOOM! And the Oscar for best Actress goes to: ...

Killer Frost! Oh, my gosh, this is so unexpected! I just want to thank all my fans, and a special nod to deputy dumbass for being so gullible, I couldn't have done it without you girl."

Frost monologued, while she did a little fist bump into the air.

 _"Ok, get your head back in the game Louise, you still need to get out of this dump and in ten minutes or less, the deputy's friends are gonna realize that she's taking too long down here and come looking for her."_

Killer Frost had been pretty messed up from the stun grenades and the gas when they brought her in, but she still managed to get her bearings.

She was underground, in what looked like a bunker, a remnant from the cold war days she guessed (the irony was not lost on her) and now it served as a holding area for metahumans and enhanced Americans. Even if the walls weren't reinforced to withstand nuclear conflagration, and she could freeze her way out, she was still underground.

"Shit, shit, shit!"

Her mind raced through her options, or lack of them to be accurate. However she put it, she would still have to fight her way out, from the bottom up, one of the worst tactical positions, against a small army of well-armed police officers, on their turf and who were gonna be out for blood since she killed one of their own. Even if she was operating at full capacity, which she was not, this wasn't an easy task to undertake.

Like so many of her life decisions, this one was preceded by one thought:

"Fuck it."

Frost took out the cameras right outside her cell first. Yes, that was a dead giveaway, but at least she could move around without being watched, and she didn't want to spoil the surprise. Next, she rushed to the only entrance/exit in the place, which connected the bunker to the rest of the precinct above and in a couple of minutes she had put up a wall of thick ice to block it.

"This should buy me some time."

It consumed a big chunk of the heat she had siphoned from the deputy, but she reckoned this was her only shot.

When they brought her in, a few or maybe several hours ago, in her state she really wasn't sure, some of the deputies found an excuse to walk past her cell, she guessed, because they had never seen someone like her before.

Just the thought of the indignity of being gawked at like some sideshow freak by a bunch of slack-jawed inbreds pissed her off to no end, but at least she was able to learn something useful from their clucking, there was another metahuman in custody, or as they put it:

"What are the chances of catching ourselves two freaks in less than two days?"

As she walked down the corridor freezing off security cameras left and right, she looked in the cells, but they were all empty, all except one.

At the end of the corridor, there was a big, heavy, metal, vault-like door, and she knew that there must be where they were keeping him/her or it.

She really didn't like pinning her hopes of escape onto a complete stranger, who under any other circumstance would probably try to take her out, (nothing personal, she would do the same) but she had to believe that no matter who or what was behind that door, it didn't want to stay locked up and would see the benefits of joining forces just long enough to manage an escape in as few pieces as possible.

She placed her right hand on the fancy electronic lock and proceeded to freeze it.

"Well, I guess it's time to meet my new best friend" she muttered as she braced herself for whatever was waiting for her behind that reinforced door.

 _"Whatever it is, it must be dangerous enough to keep it in a V.I.P cell...good, I need all the might and brawn I can get."_

The lock didn't put up much of a fight and it crumbled under her touch, but in its defense, who freeze proofs a lock in Florida?

Frost had to put all her weight into pulling the damn thing open, "Uh...hello?"

No response.

"Crap. Well, I guess I'll have to step in and introduce myself."

Killer Frost had seen a lot of weird, fantastic things in her life, things that defied logic and boggled the mind, hell, her own very existence was an impossibility out of a sci-fi novel, so it's safe to say that it would take a lot to shock her, but what she saw inside that cell, left her, for lack of a better word, dumbfounded.


	2. Chapter Two: What is dead may never die

Chapter two

WHAT IS DEAD MAY NEVER DIE

The cell was a thirteen by thirteen feet size room, bigger than most holding cell's she'd ever been in, but it dwarfed around him.

It was made of reinforced steel and concrete from the looks of it, there were no windows of course, and it had a single fluorescent ceiling light that came one whenever someone stepped in the cell, which kept him mostly in the dark, like some dirty secret.

Frost just stood there, staring in disbelief at the man hanging from reinforced shackles, trying to reconcile what she saw with what she knew to be true.

Meanwhile above their heads, the entire police department was arming itself with riot gear, preparing to storm the bunker.

The rumble above them snapped her out of her shock, she swallowed the lump that was forming in the back of her throat and moved fast towards him.

"No, it can't be…you...you're dead."

He had been killed months ago, at Arkham.

She wasn't the one who killed him, in fact, he was one of the few people (she could only think of two, counting him) for whom she might have stuck her neck out given the chance...but as fate would have it all she could do was watch in horror as his head was blown off by Amanda Waller and be grateful that it hadn't been her's.

She might have even mourned him, but she didn't know how, besides Killer Frost didn't believe in dwelling in the past or crying over spilled milk, so she did her best to put that miserable chapter of her life, that indirectly brought her to her current predicament, where it belonged, in the past, and yet, every now and then she found herself thinking of him, and of the unlikely and brief affinity they shared.

They knew each other for less than two days, so she really didn't know much about him, other than what she learned over that time, how he liked her even after she took him down with a swift kick to the balls, hell, he probably only liked her after she did that and showed him that she too was a force to be reckoned with. How he saved her life after her parachute malfunctioned, how he was scared of heights and how when push came to shove he trusted her with his life. When that wasn't enough, she googled him one night, just to try to fill in the blanks about him.

He was for all intents and purposes, a monster, the kind that people make horror movies and tell urban legends about, a half man, half shark, bloodthirsty killer. Originally from Hawaii, his name, his real name, was Nanaue, which she thought had an almost mellifluous ring to it.

But most of the information she found online were just rumors and conjecture regarding what he was and not much about _who_ he had been. Some people argued he was a metahuman, the more obvious conclusion, others said he was a Wild Man or some kind of savage mutation, and there was even a theory that stated he was the son of a local human woman and some sort of shark god, people will believe the craziest shit.

However, there was plenty of information regarding his crimes. For all the squawking and fist shaking coming from the so called "decent folks" calling out the ghastly crimes perpetrated by the likes of her, they sure did love reveling in the gory details, with tons of sites dedicated to the most notorious criminals, super villains, and their exploits, he wasn't the exception. It was website after website full of graphic pictures and details unraveling the tale of a gruesome prolific killer and cannibal, who apparently started killing when he was barely a teenager, and yet nothing she saw or read managed to rattle, if any the lack of personal information available did very little to quell the feeling of bereavement she had been experiencing since he'd been killed.

And now here he was, right in front of her, chained to a wall, wearing some kind of…" oxygen mask? No, that can't be right…"

She followed the mask's tubing with her eyes and soon realized it's true purpose and the reason why he hadn't broken himself free yet.

The "oxygen" mask was, in fact, a device that pumped some kind of narcotic gas into his airways.

That made sense, she remembered that his skin was thick, even bulletproof, which meant that most I.V. needles would break before even scratching him.

"This thing must have some kind of an off switch..."

She thought to herself as she began fiddling with the device.

It had a tank, where she figured the gas was kept in a liquid form and then through some chemical process it became a gas before it was pumped through the tubes and into Shark's airways.

There was a medical looking console on the other end of the tubes, where the information regarding the dose was input, it was that what she was trying to figure out how to shutdown, sure it would be easier just to rip it clean off, but she really didn't think filling the room with sleeping gas would help their situation, fortunately, she was no stranger to lab equipment, like how it required electricity to function.

"C'mon Louise, you're better than this."

She chided herself for not thinking about that in the first place, while she pulled the plug and removed the backup generator.

As soon as she did, the gas stopped pumping and she was able to rip the mask off, exposing his metal grin.

She couldn't help herself from brushing her fingers across his chin.

 _"Good one, good shark…"_

The memory catching her by surprise, her hand recoiling right as she began to feel a slight burning in the back of her eyes and nose.

 _"Nope, nope, nope,_ noooope _, stay focused Louise."_

"Shark? Can you hear me Shark?"

She called while shaking him, but he remained unresponsive.

"C'mon, Shark, you need to wake up, now! We need to get out of here…" Nothing.

 _"You know, he's not the real Nanaue. He can't be, you watched him die, his head was blown clean off, right in front of you, remember? No one survives that. This must be a clone or maybe some kind of android or something, but this isn't your friend."_

A cautious voice in her head warned her. Ironic, considering that her conflicting thoughts regarding King Shark's apparent return from the dead, were distracting her from the fact that he was awake.

King Shark had read somewhere once that Florida was the U.S. capital of serial killers, he didn't know if that was true, but as soon as he got there a couple a weeks before, he understood why that might be so.

There was something in the air in that place, behind the sunny beaches and orange plantations, death lurked in every corner, and it wasn't just the elderly population, waiting to die while playing bingo and shuffleboard in white shoes, in fact this state had one of the highest rates of disjointed individuals he had ever seen, a mix comprised of elderly shut-ins, beach bums, bus passengers who ran out of money, Swamp People, runaway teens, meth heads, and such.

A whole state full of people who if they fell right off the map, no one would come looking for them or file a police report, but the main reason he had decided to come here was not the easy prey, although that didn't hurt, it was because of it's proximity to the ocean.

There were plenty of beach states, but there was a certain atmosphere in this place that reminded him of home...that's right kids, King Shark the terror of the seven seas, the land shark that scourged the islands of Hawaii for years, had come down to Florida to nurse his health.

After the incident in which he quite literally lost his head, or had it blown off, to be more literal, what remained of his body was sent to Gotham's city morgue with the rest of the victims of what the media later called "The Battle of Arkham" it took a few days for his head to grow back, fortunately for him, there had been many casualties that day at Arkham, and the coroner's office was overflowing with cadavers and short staffed.

He was pronounced dead after one of the coroners took one look at his headless body and then he was left there in a corner to rot, which allowed him to regenerate without being disturbed.

It also gave him his first meal since his untimely demise once his head grew back.

But it wasn't all sunshine and lollypops for Ol' Sharky, who in that state had no recollection of who or what he was, in fact, he had no recollections at all, he was just a blank slate functioning on basic instincts. First, he fed and then he fled, under cover of the night he made his way to the nearest mass of water, which was the Atlantic Ocean.

He could feel the ocean calling out to him and as soon as he dived into the water, he felt right at home, and in return, the ocean welcomed its son with open arms.

For months he lived the life of an ordinary shark, killing and devouring whatever crossed his path, but over time as the sea currents took him again closer and closer to human populations something in him began to stir, slowly memories of a life spent on land began to coalesce in his mind, and the feeling that he wasn't like the other sharks, that there was more to life grew stronger and stronger until eventually, he found his way back to the place of his earliest memories, back to the isles of Hawaii and to the woman who as soon as he saw her, he knew was his mother.

She too welcomed her son, after months of not hearing from him, she had feared the worst but refused to believe it, and every day she would walk down to the beach near her house, looking towards the horizon for signs of her son.

She knew her Nanaue was strong, the son of a god cannot be killed by mere mortals, and so Momilani waited by the shore for her son's return until one cold, misty morning he came back to her.

He was so very lost, but as soon as he saw her, she knew he recognized her.

"Nanaue, my love, my gift from the god! What have they done to my precious Keiki kane?"

She cried out as she ran towards him with open arms.

King Shark fell to his knees and mother and son embraced and cried together.

Over the next two months, in that safe, familiar surrounding most of his memories started coming back to him as he enjoyed the tender, loving care of his mother. He would help her do chores around the house like he did when he was a boy and at night he would curl up at her side on the porch while she talked about their relatives and their family history, his history.

She would tell him about his father and how he came to be, but with the return of all those precious, happy memories also came the pain of the memories of being rejected and feared since he was a boy, memories of him being called a freak and a monster, memories of feeling out of place, too much of a shark for the land people, and too much of a man for the sea, a creature of two worlds, but with no true place in either of them to call his own.

By then he knew who he was and was starting to remember how he lost his head as well, he also remembered why he left home and his mother's side in the first place, his presence put her and the rest of his family in danger.

There still were people who remembered his killing spree back in the nineties, people who thought it was just to punish his mother for his crimes, and so, with a heavy heart he decided to leave the only home he had ever known, again, just to keep his family safe from retaliation.

Momilani walked her son to the beach at dawn, she did not cry, but she did make her son promise her that he would take care of himself and that he would come back to her.

King Shark assured her he would be all right and promised that he would come back for her birthday.

They said goodbye and she watched her son swim away from her life again...then she cried.

Back at the mainland, King Shark still not feeling quite like himself hunted his way down to Florida, where he hoped he could regain his strength back in peace.

He tried to keep a low profile, not an easy feat for a seven foot tall, shark-man, with a taste for human flesh, but he made sure to just hunt hookers, crack-heads, and bums, not his favorite meals for sure, but they were low priority to the police, and he didn't want to attract the kind of attention that might get a leaguer involved.

It was all going well too, until two days ago when he found himself at a local biker bar downing a few beers, minding his own business for once, until some local thugs decided they were man enough to pick a fight with the seven foot meta, words were exchanged, words like "freak" and "aberration" and to make a long story short, bikers don't taste much better than your average bum.

The next thing he knew, half the sheriff's department was there, now usually towny cops were just dessert, but these deputies were armed with military grade weaponry, riot gear and some kind of narcotic gas that packed a wallop, and although he was able to take out several of them, he still went down and was captured, talk about being off his game.

He wasn't out cold, the gas they were pumping into him just kept him sedated and groggy, in kind of a haze, in it, he saw his mother looking up at him with tears in her eyes.

"Don't cry Makuahine, I'm all right…"

He tried to say to her, but she just faded away into the darkness.

He also saw some of his victims, limbless and torn to shreds, taunting him from the grave, but he just chuckled at them...

But now he was visited by a small woman, with unearthly pale skin, short, feathered silver-blue hair, and one of the most beautiful teardrop shaped pair of breasts he ever laid eyes upon on a slender woman, a strange beauty indeed.

He heard the nereid move closer to him, casting away the shadows with her presence but he was too sedated to care, then his first breath of unadulterated air in over a day came and filled his lungs and with every breath that came after, his senses started to awake and his mind began to shake off the narcotic chains that were binding it.

Now he realized that the nymph in front of him was in fact very real and not just a lustful dream. She felt cold like she just came from outside on a crisp autumn morning and didn't close the door behind her and somehow she felt familiar, like a song he heard long ago but couldn't remember the words that went with it.

"C'mon Shark, I need you to wake up, now!"

Frost could hear the sheriff's men trying to break down the bunker door and tried to calculate how much time they had before they did.

She had a low, husky voice and was calling his name, but he wasn't ready to let her know he was awake, not until he figured out who the hell she was and why she was helping him.

 _"I might not remember everything, but I remember no one helps me."_

Then the room got even colder as the woman wrapped her small slender hands around two of the oversized chains that bound him.

 _"Ha! Don't hurt yourself, lady."_

Thought King Shark with a hint of derision, which disappeared as soon as he heard the chains crack and snap like china, and then another one, and another after that.

Just as he thought, this woman was a metahuman, and he was glad that he hadn't made his move yet if he had, he might not have found out about her freezing powers, now at least he had an idea of what this woman could do.

As Killer Frost made good on her name and froze the chains that held King Shark, a loud thud behind her made her whip her head around just as the last chains snapped, the sheriff's men had just broken down the door, and soon would breach her ice wall as well and come for them, but before she could even curse at her apparent foiled escape and bleak outcome, she was overpowered by three hundred pounds of pure muscle coming down on her.

She grunted because of the strain on her muscles and stumbled backward almost losing her balance, but she threw her hands forward and used her whole body to keep him in place.

As King Shark, now untethered fell to his knees, he growled and opened his eyes. He wasn't faking this, after over a day of being chained up like an animal his limbs were stiff and unresponsive and now he found himself being held up by his tiny would be savior who was now at his same height, almost, and for a moment they both stood there breathing together.

"Oh good, you're awake...finally."

He heard her say as she caught her breath, but his attention was on the battering sounds that were coming from beyond his cell, his instincts kicking in, he pulled himself up.

The shark was back.

Frost took a couple of steps back to give him some room to stand and for the first time in eight months, they stood in front of each other.

It would have been a heartwarming reunion if not for the men trying to get in and kill them.

Frost looked up into his eyes and saw...no recognition whatsoever.

 _"Uh-oh...maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all."_

It occurred to her as she began to backtrack, now realizing that instead of walling the cops away from her, she, in fact, had walled herself in with a seven-foot tall man-eater who had no recollection of her and their previous relationship.

"Shark? It's me, Killer Fro-Louise, you do remember me, right? Say you remember me Shark."

She spoke cautiously while still backing away from him slowly, hands raised in a placating gesture.

A deep rumble came from deep within his chest as he began to take steps towards her, shortening the distance between the two of them in a heartbeat and making the hairs on the back of her neck bristle.

Sure he was grateful for being released, and sure he was curious about who this ice lady was and where he knew her from, but he hadn't eaten anything in over a day and she was right there in arms reach, looking so tender and yet strong, supple like a young taut harp seal...

"No bars, no chains...time for meat!"

He declared right before pouncing on her.

Frost was nimble and avoided his attack, jumping backward but oddly she didn't follow through and instead landed on her ass, legs extended towards him.

King Shark didn't waste this opportunity, he grabbed on to one of her calves and pulled her towards him almost lifting her off the ground, but Frost, without missing a beat spun around and with little effort kicked him square in the balls with the heel of her boot.

"OOOOWWW!"

Shark bellowed as he doubled over in pain and genuine shock, right before being smashed in the face with a block of ice Frost had just materialized. As soon as he hit the ground flat on his back the little woman jumped on him and landed on his chest, she then lowered her face to his and said:

"Try it again fish fingers and I'll show you the real meaning of cold-blooded."

Shark was...impressed.

"You're feisty."

He acknowledged, and as soon as the words came out of his mouth something clicked inside his head and a chunk of his misplaced memories fell into place right then and there. Amanda Waller, the Suicide Squad, the bomb in the back of his head, Arkham asylum, Captain Boomerang, Harley Quinn, Deadshot and...KILLER FROST!

As soon as Killer Frost realised that King Shark had no idea who she was, she knew that she was in deep trouble, to say the least, but when he said to her the same exact words he said when they first met, it dawned on her that although he seemed to have forgotten her, at some level he still knew who she was. So after avoiding his initial attack, she decided to take a big risk and recreate their first encounter as accurately as she remembered and see if that jogged his memory, if it didn't, well kicking him in the balls was as good a way to let him know she wasn't going down without a fight.

Now as she straddled him, she hoped he, if it really was he and not some clone would recall how they met eight months ago in another cell, cause this time he wasn't wearing a muzzle.

King Shark was stunned and overwhelmed as lost memories came flooding back to him in no particular order. He shook his head trying to clear his mind, and when he opened his eyes again he saw Louise looking down at him, with a fierce look in her eyes, her muscles tense and arms raised, ready to attack in a split second.

"Louise?! Is it really you?"

Only when she heard him call her name, did she drop her guard and with a sigh of relief Killer Frost pressed her forehead against his chest.

"Hi, Sharky."

Was her relieved muffled greeting.

Shark sat up and Frost slid onto his lap.

"Louise…"

He savored her name as he looked down at her and gently brushed away the strands of hair from her face with his thumb like he needed to touch her to make sure she was really there.

Frost closed her eyes and allowed him to touch her face, then she looked up at him and mimicked the gestured, petting his face and softly saying:

"Good shark, good shark..."

There were so many things he wanted to say to her, but before he could say anything she spoke:

"It's good to see you too, but we need to get out of here, now." Emphasize on the now.

"We're underground and that's the only exit."

She explained turning and pointing towards the almost gone wall of ice "and there's a bunch of heavily armed, pissed off cops on the other side that are gonna barge in on us at any minute. I'm open to suggestions."

Shark listened to her while he stared at the ice wall blocking the entrance and processed the information.

"So, how do you wanna do this? I can cover you, but I should tell you, I don't have all my strength right now."

She looked away when she said this last part, admitting a weakness made her feel uncomfortable, but Shark didn't even notice it, too busy looking up at the ceiling now.

"Can you freeze the ceiling apart?"

Frost's eyes lit up as soon as she heard this, she hadn't even thought about the ceiling and it should be the less reinforced part of the room.

"Yes! Good thinking! "

She said as she gave Shark a friendly little punch on the arm, excitement, and optimism quickly returning to her.

"¿Can you give me a boost? I need to touch the ceiling to freeze it all the way through."

She was still sitting on his lap and Shark nodded.

"Hop on." He asked while tapping his left shoulder.

Frost barely managed to smile as a response before King Shark lifted her onto his broad shoulder.

Frost had to lean over Shark's head because of how close she was to the ceiling, and with both hands placed on it, she had no way of holding herself, Shark knew this too, so he put his left hand on her back to steady her and with his right hand he held her left thigh to keep her in place...

Frost knew he wouldn't let her fall and she could concentrate on the task at hand.

Freezing a structure was one of the first things she learned when she developed her powers, how different materials froze at different temperatures, and how the best way to compromise structural integrity, was from within pushing the cold in instead of freezing it from the outside, a simple enough task that she could perform in her sleep, but now, with her limited strength she could feel the strain on her, but this only made her push herself harder.

She was so concentrated on what she was doing she didn't even hear when the cops finally broke down the wall, she only realized it when suddenly Shark pulled her down and wrapped his arms around her protecting her from the hail of bullets that came their way.

The cops had automatic assault rifles and came in blasting like it was the O.K Corral, over the gunfire noise, she heard Shark shout:

"Stay behind me!"

Then he turned around and started walking slowly towards the incoming cops with his arms held up in front of his face, while bullets bounced off of him.

She kept herself close to him, making sure to keep her legs aligned with his. They were grossly outgunned and outnumbered and Shark was holding back not wanting to leave her exposed.

"We can't go on like this for long…"

Shark turned his head to look at her for a moment.

"You say something?"

But Frost didn't hear him, she was now crouching behind him and stretched her hands between his legs.

"I just need a little more...juice." She whispered while she aimed at the cops ankles.

The first cop went down screaming as soon as he felt the frostbite dig its teeth into his ankle. Shark was able to reach him just as he dropped his rifle, he yanked the still screaming man towards him and tore him like a paper doll, blood, and guts spilling all over the floor while his friends watched in horror. Frost took advantage of their collective lapse's and froze the spilled entrails in a heartbeat, causing the rest of the cops to slip and fall.

That was all the advantage Shark needed, he began ripping the sheriff's men apart with vicious ferocity, at one point he grabbed one of the nearby cops by his legs and started beating his colleagues with him, not even their riot gear could protect them from the shark's brutal assaults.

This made Frost laugh as she felt a sudden surge of bloodlust taking over her.

She had kept herself behind Shark, cautiously away from the bullets paths, but as more and more cops laid on the ground, incapacitated, she was able to engage more and even replenish some much-needed heat as she froze the life away from some of them.

Soon the cops stopped rushing in.

The corridor was a bloody mess, even the walls and ceiling sported a fresh coat of blood. Torn limbs and assorted body parts were sprawled all over the floor.

It was all quiet for now, no doubt the rest of the cops were outside regrouping themselves and counting their losses, but the both of them could still hear the ringing from the gunfire in their ears and smell the stench of burnt gunpowder in the air, there were also some weakening moans and screams coming from the few survivors being swiftly silenced.

As Shark finished devouring an arm, he turned to see how Louise was doing and found her standing over a wounded cop, he was unable to walk and tried to crawl away from her which seemed to amuse her, she then kicked him around a bit while he screamed in fear and pain, and finally as he begged for his worthless life she turned him around, knelt on him, pulled off his helmet, placed her hands around his neck, and squeezed while she looked him right in the eyes and before she choked the life out of him, she froze his head solid.

"Mmmm, now, that hits the spot."

She purred as she stood up with a satisfied smirk on her lips, but before walking away from her victim, she pressed her high heel against the cop´s frozen head until it went through it, shattering it to pieces.

Shark watched in awe, arm still dangling from his jaws like a strain of spaghetti.

"What a woman…"

Frost flipped her hair as she turned away from the corpsicle and smiled at her friend, walking towards him.

"Well, that was a lot of fun. Ready for round two?"

She asked raising her right hand, palm facing him.

Shark blinked and stared at her for a moment, before lifting his own blood cover hand which was promptly slapped by her.

Although they were both reveling in their carnage and seemed confident in their odds, they both knew that this was just a pit stop, and that soon what was left of the sheriff's men would regroup and come on them even harder.

Shark looked at the entrance and then at Louise.

"You think you can make another wall and buy us some more time?

"Uh, yeah, sure."

But before she could walk past him on her way to the entrance, Shark stopped her.

"Hold on."

He then began picking up the dismembered pieces that used to be the sheriff's men, and piling them in front of the entrance, while Frost gave him a confused look.

"If they wanna come for us, let them come through their dead friend's bodies first."

"Oh, I get it. I like the way you think."

she cheerfully said as she began dragging a half eaten torso towards the pile, careful not to slip on the blood and guts.

It took them just a few minutes to place all the bits and pieces in front of the entrance, the big ones, like the torso Killer Frost, was dragging went at the bottom and so on. Shark would arrange them and Frost would freeze them, then Shark would stack more body parts and Frost would freeze those as well.

The result was a macabre ice and flesh wall, but they seemed pleased with the result. Frost liked experimenting with her powers and had never made a wall with human remains before, Shark on the other hand just wanted to lick that amazing looking corpsicle.

Frost turned around and started walking back to the other end of the corridor.

"C'mon, the sooner we're done, the sooner we blow this popsicle stand."

She stood under the frozen spot in the ceiling and Shark, right behind her, took a knee, so she could climb on his shoulder again.

For a moment there, Frost thought he kinda looked like a quarterback kneeling before the big game, even more so with his broad kevlar shoulder pads.

He hoisted her up once more with great ease and she pressed her hands on the cold spot resuming her task once more, but this time around it didn't feel like she might pass out from the effort, so she decided it was okay to use one hand while with the other she held herself by Shark's collar. Meanwhile, he turned his gaze from her to the ice blocked entrance back and forth, this went on for a couple of minutes until Shark broke the silence.

"It's too quiet...I don't like it."

"Maybe they're too scared to come back and are hoping that if they leave us alone we will somehow get the hell out of their hair."

Shark gave her an incredulous look. "You really think that?"

"Sure, and once I'm done here and you break the ceiling open, candies are gonna fall on our heads…"

She answered giving him a tired smile.

"Don't worry, I'll be done soon"

"How soon?"

Shark wasn't rushing Louise out of impatience, he really did have a bad feeling about how easy everything seemed to be going.

"Kill a bunch of cops and bust out like it's a pet store...makes no sense. These cops have a metahuman cell down here and military grade weaponry, and now they just decided to leave us alone? I'm not buying it."

Frost squirmed trying to find a more comfortable position between the shark and the ceiling without falling and sighed, annoyed at her friend's impatience.

 _"I'm not a freaking snow cone machine._

 _It'll take as long as it takes._

 _What do you think I'm doing up here, magic? No, my friend, this is science... I didn't remember you being so pushy…"_

"About...five more minutes, give or take a minute or two."

"Look, I think it's frozen enough, I think I can smash it apart as it is."

 _"Oh, you think that, do you? So now you're an expert at cryogenics, are you?...Okay, don't snap at Shark, you're happy to see him, remember? and he means well, plus he can eat you like a cupcake."_

Frost began running her fingers, absentmindedly through Shark´s mohawk, more out of frustration than affection.

He could tell Louise was annoyed at him, clearly, she wasn't used to having her decisions questioned, although she tried to hide it well.

He should have pressed her about it, but now he could only think of how good her stroking his head felt.

"I'm sure you could, but if you smash the ceiling now, it would fall apart in big chunks, frozen chunks, which would, in fact, be denser and heavier than regular concrete, which is already pretty heavy as it is. Just think of the Titanic, and how an iceberg was able to cut through steel like it was tin foil. Also different materials freeze at different rates, and this ceiling has more than one layer, it has electric wiring, insulating materials, maybe even some pipes running through it, that means I need to freeze all of it in a way that it won't get stronger, but in fact lighter and fragile, like glass. That way, once you smash it and it falls on us, it won't crush us to death, but because of the humidity of the Florida climate, it takes longer to get the desired glass effect."

Frost was proud of how she handled herself, not letting her temper get the best of her, but instead had been able to explain in a civil and comprehensive way to her friend why her way of doing things was the right way.

She looked down at him with a warm slightly condescending smile on her face, only to find that Shark had a far off, glazed over look in his eyes. Apparently, she hadn't stopped running her fingers through his hair while she spoke and he looked like he was in his own private dimension of pleasure at that moment.

"Shark! Did you even hear a word of what I just said?"

Shark was jerked out of his happy place by Frost calling out his name, in a clearly exasperated tone. He looked up at her and saw her looking down at him, eyes squinting while she frowned, turning her eyebrows into an almost perfect horizontal line, and her lower lip protruding in a sulky pout, but he had no idea why.

"Uh? Oh, are you done?"

Frost's jaw dropped in mild outrage and was about to make a scathing remark regarding Shark's poor listening skills, but before she could, she was knocked down by a blast that made the whole corridor tremble, right before becoming engulfed in smoke and flames.

Frost flew off of Shark's shoulder across the corridor and landed hard on her back.

She fed of heat sources, but she still needed to breathe and now she could feel the oxygen being burnt out of the room, but before the flames could reach her, Shark landed on her, making sure he shielded her without crushing her, then another blast hit.

She must have passed out for a few minutes because the next thing she knew was they were both back in Shark's old cell, Frost couldn't understand what was going on at first, she was coughing her lungs out, felt dizzy and this time, she really couldn't hear a damn thing.

Shark was standing by the door, he pulled the lever that was used to open it, but he bent it all the way until it went across the frame, making it impossible for a regular human to pull it open from the other side.

Frost could smell burnt hair and realized it came from her own scorched hair and the faux fur that lined her sleeves and boots. There was also another burnt smell she couldn't quite identify, not until Shark bent the lever making him turn a bit towards her, and she saw his back and arms, covered in burns, and for a second she thought she was gonna be sick at the sight of her friend's injuries.

 _"You need to keep it together Louise, you can't unravel now like some scared damsel."_

She tried calling out to him, but only managed to cough even harder, so she pulled herself up to her feet gracelessly and stumbled over to where he was.

Shark pressed his forehead against the metal door, panting.

"We're fucked..." He muttered.

He was startled out of his train of thought by Louise gently placing a hand on his waist, he looked at her, she was covered in soot and had a pained look on her face, then it hit him, she could be hurt after all. Shark looked her over carefully to see if there were any visible wounds and tried not to think of the very real possibility of internal wounds due to the blast.

"Are you hurt?" He finnaly asked her.

Frost could see his mouth moving but couldn't hear him and it's not like she could try to read his lips.

"Louise, are you alright? Are you hurt?!"

Frost shook her head while she pointed at her ears with both index fingers and mouthed the words "I can't hear you."

"Oh, right…"

But at least she seemed to understand what he was saying out of context because she pointed to her eye and then made the "o.k" gesture with her fingers, but she didn't seem ok, she was tugging at him, trying to, turn him around?

He couldn't understand what she wanted from him, so he followed her motions, and turned.

Louise placed a hand on her mouth and closed her eyes for a moment, feeling a bit queasy again.

"Oh, no, no, I'm alright…" Shark started to say until he remembered that it was futile. "How can explain to you that I'm gonna be fine in a couple hours? Please don't look at me like that. Wait, I know."

Shark mimicked her previous gestures reassuring her he was ok, but Louise shook her head and started pulling him closer to her and turning him again, she then placed her hands right above his wounds on the back of his arms and soon Shark felt a cold relief, similar to cold compresses.

Louise did this for a while on his arms and back and although it did make him feel much better, the cold as much as the fact that she cared enough to do it, he had to stop her.

He was just beginning to understand how her powers worked but apparently, she had a limit to how much of them she could use before she was tapped out, and they were gonna need them for what he was thinking about doing.

She didn't want to stop, but Shark pulled her away and wearily sat down back to the door, not leaving enough space for her to reach his wounds, but carefully avoiding resting his back on its surface, finally he spread his arms inviting her to come closer, not sure if she would, but Louise kneeled and scooted onto his lap, then she pulled her legs towards her and curled up between his legs.

She tried not to think about how much pain her friend must be in and how profoundly fucked they were, so instead, she closed her eyes and buried her face in his chest.

They sat like that for a while, the initial adrenaline rush having left them, and now feeling overwhelmed and exhausted by everything that had taken place.

Frost wondered if it would be so terrible if she just gave into her desire to sleep, "It's not like it would make a damn difference at this point."

The reality was, they were trapped in a cell underground and on the other side of the door was nothing but fire and beyond that, men with what she assumed were rocket launchers aimed at their cell, which was reinforced, but eventually would fall under the heavy fire and then they would both be toast.

What a miserable way to die, trapped in a rat hole in some shitty little town in Florida, but at least she wasn't alone…

"I'm sorry about all of this Shark…" She started to say and Shark pulled her closer to the side of his head as he leaned closer as well, he still couldn't hear very well because of the blasts.

"I said, I'm sorry, I should have left you in your cell, you were better off."

"Don't say that anything's better than being caged and drugged, besides we are in my cell."

Shark said trying to cheer her up, to no avail.

"I beg to differ, now we are trapped, you're hurt and soon we'll both be dead. I should have listened to you and tried to break through the ceiling when you asked me to...The only thing that I don't regret about all of this mess is seeing you one last time."

Hearing her talk in such a despondent way made his heart ache.

"Look at me, Louise. I promise you this is not the last time we see each other, we are gonna get out of here, alive and...maybe not unharmed, but we are gonna make it."

This was quite the pep-talk coming from the usually laconic Shark, and she really did want to believe him, but she didn't see a way out.

"How?"

was all that she asked.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I've never been to Florida and have nothing against it, I just like the idea of a nice, sunny place having a dark side underneath its surface.

There's a small line from 30 Rock in this chapter, cause I really like 30 Rock and I doubt I will ever write a story featured in Florida again ;) whoever can tell wich one it is, gets an imaginary trophy and my respect.

There's also a reference to GOT in the title, I hope no one found it confusing.

I had to give King Shark a back story and from his DC profile, I learned that he is originally from Hawaii and in fact, is the son of a human woman and a shark god. The name Momilani was my personal addition and it means "heavenly pearl".

I like the idea of Shark being a bit of a momma´s boy.

keiki kane is Hawaiian for son and Makuahine means mother.


	3. Chapter Three: Between a Shark and

Chapter Three

CAUGHT BETWEEN A SHARK AND A HARD PLACE

The good thing about preying on gangbangers and lowlives is that you get to know all of their hangouts in a week or two. It really was like taking candy from a baby, Shark thought to himself as he walked up to the young man standing on the corner, with his hoodie pulled down as far as it went over his mohawk, and a biker half face skull mask covering his own very memorable metal half face.

"¿Qué pasa hermano? ¿qué tu quiere? ¿crack? ¿coca? ¿putas?"

("What's up brother? Whatchu need? crack? coke? pussy?")

"...Meth."

"Mira grandulón, si tu quiere la meta, muestrame la plata, puto drogo maricón"

("Look, biggie, if you want the meth, show me the money, you fucking faggot, junkie")

The dealer replied with a shameless grin plastered across his face.

Shark glanced over his shoulder right before he leaned in a little closer to the wannabe gangsta's face.

"Toda mi plata...se la di a tu hermana por dejar que me la cogiera por el culo, los tres dólares completos, hermano."

("I gave all my money...to your sister for letting me fuck her up the ass, the whole three dollars, brother.")

King Shark spat back in a flawless Spanish, an amused glint in his eyes. Oh, and the dealer's expression when he heard Shark's retort was priceless, his eyebrows shot so far up they were almost at hairline level, and his gaping mouth turned into a perfect "O" making him look kinda like a surprised emoji for a moment, right before he remembered who the fuck he was, that this was his corner and no Shrek looking motherfucker was gonna step up to him like that.

"¡Serás hijo de la gran puta! ¡Yo a ti te parto el culo cabrón!"

("You motherfucker! I'm gonna chop your ass off, you fucker!")

Before the dealer could reach for his piece, King Shark reached for his neck and snapped it like a twig, he then proceeded to empty his pockets. He took his wad of money, his stash and as he was about to step back he noticed a brand new pack of Red Apple cigarettes and took them as well.

He dumped the body in a nearby dumpster, no need for the cops to find him right away, but what he really wanted to do was to eat him whole. He hadn't eaten since the day before and that had been just a quick bite in the middle of a shootout, and now he could feel his stomach beginning to complain, but no dice, he still needed to make two more stops before heading back to the house.

"Oh, well, I've been eating too much junk food lately anyway."

Shark started walking eastbound, next stop Saint Mary Magdalene's.

The church's large black bulletin board read in crooked white plastic letters:

"Monday's N.A meeting 08:00 P.M. God welcomes all of his children without judgment."

Shark stood outside, with his hands stuffed in his hoodie's pockets, waiting. Every now and then people would walk into the church for the meeting, he would look them over and then go back to standing around. He knew that under any other circumstance he would look suspicious as hell, but the people walking in had enough problems of their own to pay much attention to him, besides an addict that's not sure he's ready to go into a meeting is a common sight outside every meeting place in the U.S. if not the world.

As the minutes dragged on into a half an hour Shark started to get impatient, he didn't like playing games, the direct approach was more his style, but he knew that after all they went through, the last thing they needed was for him to bring attention onto himself. He promised Louise he would keep her safe and uncaged, and he meant it.

 _"_ _Ah, Louise..."_

Since she came back into his life, his memories of her and in the flesh, something within him he thought lost started to stir awake and with it to shed months of lethargy away.

Looking back now, he realized he had been searching for something these past few months, his memories of course, but even as those had started to come back to him, he still felt like there was something missing, he just couldn't quite put his finger on what that was, but the things that had always made him happy before, like hunting, brawling, causing mayhem, etc. just didn't seem to bring him the same joy anymore, and he wondered if maybe that was a side effect of having his head blown off. But then, Louise came along and stirred everything up, like a gust of cool wind shaking him out of his trance, and for the first time in months, he began to feel like his old enthused self.

He didn't understand how someone whom he barely knew could have such effect on him, there was just something about Louise, he thought to himself as he reminisced on how she had fought with tooth and nail the day before, not letting anyone subdue her.

He could tell she wasn't a trained fighter, more like a scrapper taking whatever opening she could find to inflict pain on her opponent, but what she lacked in technique she more than compensated with feist and viciousness, alternating jabs, somersaults and kicks with her ice wielding powers, Killer Frost indeed.

Shark closed his eyes for a moment and visualized her standing over a burly man, one of the deputies sent in to take them down, now cowering at her feet. Covered in the blood of her would be captors, now turned victims she basked in the man's fear, kicking him in the ribs playfully just to hear him scream, much like a cat playing with a wounded mouse, right before delivering the final blow.

Shark's breath hitched in his throat at the memory of the Valkyrie standing by his side, laying waste to their enemies in a bloodbath, and swallowed as his mouth started to water.

 _"_ _Ah, Louise as soon as you get better, you and I are gonna have so much fun together..."_

Shark's train of thought was suddenly derailed by the incoming sound of high heels clacking against the pavement.

She was a skinny little thing, five feet tall minus the heels and a few pounds shy of a buck soaking wet. Her pasty white skin made the dark circles under her eyes pop out in contrast. She had long, greasy, thin, ash blond hair and wore a red tank top, skinny blue jeans, cheap red pumps and a worn denim jacket.

As she walked up to the church, she seemed nervous, like she wasn't quite sure if she should go in.

 _"_ _There's my girl."_

"Hey..." Shark spoke up as he stepped out of the shadows, "You gotta light?"

The tiny junkie actually jumped a little, startled at the sight of such a massive man, and instinctively clutched her purse tighter.

"Hey! Hi...Hey, I didn't see ya there...sure big guy, here you go." She blurted out, handing him a small plastic yellow lighter with a green pot leaf on it.

 _"_ _Great, she couldn't have a metal zippo lighter, I hate these damn plastic tic-tacs!"_

Shark thought to himself as he turned from her, pulling down his half mask and tried to light the damn cigarette, which only worked at like the eighth try.

He handed the open pack to the young woman, and she gleefully took a cigarette alongside with her lighter.

"Keep Em" He said, trying to suppress a cough.

"Wow! Really? Thanks, man! That's mighty decent of ya, Red Apples are my brand."

"Yeah, well I'm trying to quit."

"Well, you came to the right place then." The woman said, shooting a sly smile in Shark's direction.

After that, she seemed a lot friendlier. They talked for about twenty minutes, or more like he let her do all the talking. Her name was Gwyneth, like the actress, and people told her all the time how they even looked alike, but she wasn't an actress, she was a dancer, who had to strip to pay the bills, but she did it in a classy way, like the girl in Flashdance.

She was from a little town near Wisconsin and came down to Florida with her boyfriend when she was fifteen, he was in a band and was gonna be the next Tommy Lee, with her at his side as his Pamela, but things didn't go as planned and they fell into hard times, which in turn led to hard drugs, then her boyfriend started dealing to pay for their habit and ended up selling a few grams to an undercover cop who busted him.

He got a dime at Florida State Pen. After that Gwyneth decided to get clean, get her G.E.D and then go to beauty school so she could one day open up her own shop, but kicking the habit had proven to be more difficult than she though.

King Shark listened politely, while Gwyneth told him her sad life story, nodding every now and then, and turning away from her to take the odd drag of his cigarette.

 _"_ _Bleh, how can people actually like sucking on these things?"_

"But, where are my manners? I've been chewing your ear off all this time, nonstop and I don't even know your name. Are you here for the meeting too?"

"My friends call me...Mark" Said Shark "and I am here for you."

"Oh, is that so...Mark?" She said, licking her lips, cat-like.

"Sure, I have something, just for you."

"Oh Mark, now you're just saying all the right things...are you sure you're not an angel waiting for me outside of church?" Gwyneth asked while making googly eyes up at him.

"More like someone who sees that you've been through a rough patch and wants to help you... take the edge off, but first I need you to do something for me."

"Wha-whaddya mean?"

"Maybe you haven't been able to kick the habit because you never got…"closure", like when you break up with someone and you sleep with them one last time so you can get them outta your system and move on without looking back, you know what I mean?"

Oh, she knew what he meant alright. Gwyneth was now looking up at him like he was the devil, but...she didn't walk away.

"And I just so happen to have some "closure" right here." Shark said as he showed her the little bags of crystals in his large right hand. Her eyes locked on them like they were the last lifeboat on the Titanic.

"Ok man, ok, I know how it is...do you have a car where we can do this at?"

"We don't need a car for what I want from you."

Shark said as he handed her a folded piece of paper. She stared at it like she had never seen one before.

"Take it, it won't bite."

Gwyneth took the paper from him, unfolded it and proceeded to read its content.

"Can you understand the handwriting?" Shark asked.

"Uh, yeah, bandages, gauze, antiseptic, Advil…" She read out loud, giving "Mark" a puzzled look.

"Good. There's a Walgreens a couple of blocks from here, we're gonna walk over there, I'm gonna give you some cash so you can buy all of the items on the list, while I wait for you right outside and watch you. Then you're gonna walk over to the bodega next door and you're gonna buy the food items on the list. Once you're done you're gonna walk outside, hand the bags over to me and then, and only then will you get your payment. Do you understand?" Shark made sure he spoke as if he were talking to a three-year-old.

The young woman slowly nodded as she looked up at him.

"You want me to...do your shopping for you, and you're gonna pay me in meth?...Wait, you a cop? Cause if you are, you gotta tell me if I ask you."

King Shark actually chuckled a bit at the sound of that.

"That's just an urban myth, undercover cops don't have to tell you jack, they can and will lie their asses off to your face...but no, I'm not a cop."

Now she looked confused "Ok, but... you just said that underco-"

"So you're not interested? Ok, in that case I guess I'll find someone else who-"

"NO! I mean, no, I-I didn't say that I...wait...ok, I'll do it, but if you put a fucking finger on me I'll scream rape, got it?"

They started walking away from the church "You were gonna go down on me in the back of my car to get the meth in my pocket, so I really don't see what all the fuss is about."

"Yeah, well, blowing a guy for a fix is normal, doing his shopping while he watches for ten times the worth of the shopping list in meth, is just...weird."

"It takes all sorts to make the world go round."

"Yeah, sure, whatever floats your goat man."

They walked in silence for the first block, Shark's thoughts wandering back to Louise, he hated leaving her injured and by herself, but he knew he needed to get medical supplies and food. Ironically, thanks to his habit of eating people Shark had collected a pretty extensive knowledge of human anatomy and a basic understanding of emergency medicine, but Louise being metahuman made it harder for him to assess her injuries properly, and that worried him.

Out of the blue Gwyneth broke the silence "You don't look injured." She said looking him over while they walked.

"What? I'm not. Why do you ask?"

"Well, you've got plenty of first aid essentials on the list, plus the painkillers, but you seem fine…"

There was an implicit question in that statement that lingered in the air, and Shark's instinctive reaction was to tell her to mind her own damn business, but on second thought it wasn't like she was going to live to tell anyone what she heard.

"They're not for me, they're for my...friend. We had a run-in with the cops and she got hurt."

"Oh, that explains why you don't wanna be seen around town, cops looking for ya. Well, you don't have to worry about me, I don't talk to no cops."

"Goody for me."

"It's really decent of ya, what you're doing, you know? Instead of bailing out on her you're sticking around and helping your injured girlfriend. She's a really lucky girl…" As Gwyneth spoke, her chipper demeanor faded and was replaced with a note of nostalgia in her voice and a far off, distant look in her eyes.

"Girl-what girlfriend?! Lou-she's not my girlfriend, she's just a friend who happens to be a girl-woman! ...You talk too much." Shark wasn't used to having personal conversations with his food, it felt jarring and awkward as hell.

"Ok man, whatever you say...it's still really nice of ya. Can I ask you something else?"

"No. What?"

"If your girl-friend who happens to be a woman is hurt, shouldn't you take her to a hospital?

I mean, I know you are hiding from the cops and all, but if she's hurt bad, isn't it better to get medical attention, even if it means getting locked up?"

Shark stopped for a moment and looked down at the girl, and she really was a girl, nineteen or twenty tops. "You've never been locked up, and I don't mean getting pinched for a misdemeanor and spending a few nights in the slammer, I mean doing real time in a real prison, locked away for twenty-three hours a day in a small, cold, bare concrete room, all by yourself. Well, have you? Yeah, I didn't think so, cause if you had you wouldn't be saying that."

Gwyneth dropped her gaze and they started walking again, this time in silence until they reached the pharmacy, but as they arrived and before Gwyneth could walk in, Shark grabbed her by the arm and pulled her hard enough to let her know he meant business.

She started to protest "HEEEEY! Get your fuckin-" but he cut her off with a single predatory glare.

"Run away, tell anyone what you're doing or ask for help and I will catch you, and what I'll do to you will make giving head for loosies feel like heaven, got it?"

She looked up at Shark, genuinely scared, and nodded vigorously.

"Good, here's the money, now go. I'll be watching you from across the street."

He watched her go into the pharmacy, now he just had to wait.

Shark took in his surroundings, the ATMs right outside the store with their cameras and the traffic camera near the stop sign in the corner, electronic eyes everywhere and a million ways to screw up and get caught, but not this time, this time he had a thought out plan, this time he wouldn't be flying by the seat of his pants, because this time he had Louise to get back to.

He runs through his checklist one more time:

 _"_ _1) Get meth. Check._

 _2) Get meth head to do the shopping. Check._

 _3) Get the medical supplies and groceries from meth head and go home. Soon._

 _4) Eat meth head and leave no witness?..."_

It took Gwyneth little over fifteen minutes to get the medical supplies. Shark could see her through the Walgreens windows, picking out stuff, there were only a couple more people in the store and so far she was following his instructions to the letter.

She paid and left the store with the bags in hand, which she waved over her head at him when she got out, he in turn nodded in approval and jerked his head towards the bodega next door, reminding her that she still had one more stop to make before she could claim her payment.

Another ten minutes passed and Gwyneth came out of the second store, this time she had so many bags on her, she could barely keep them off the ground. Shark made his way across the street and took the bags from her before she collapsed under their weight. He went through their contents to make sure everything was there, while Gwyneth awaited expectantly.

"Looks like everything's here…"

"Well, duh. I can follow simple instructions, you know?" She said sounding almost offended.

"Yeah, good for you."

"Here are your receipts and your change."

Shark looked down at her extended hand and its contents, a bit confused, he really didn't expect her to bring him back his change.

" _An honest junkie, who knew?_ Uh, thanks...keep it, consider it a tip for a job well done."

She smiled back "Thanks…"

"Oh, and here's your candy" Shark said as he fished the little bags of meth out of his pocket and handed them over to her.

Gwyneth took them right away and then just stared at him like she really couldn't believe there was nothing more to it.

"So…? That's it?...you really don't want me to blow you?" She sounded almost disappointed or maybe it was she just couldn't believe her good fortune.

"Yeah, maybe next time kid. Take care." and with that, Shark grabbed the bags, turned around and started walking away from her.

He had considered Gwyneth's offer, just so he could take her somewhere more secluded and eat her once she was done eating him, but eating people with whom he had some sort of relationship, it was...awkward, and the girl had been nice to him, giving him his change and all, and it's not like she knew anything about him that if questioned could lead back to him. Besides, it was late and he figured it would be past midnight when he finally got back to the house as it was, and he didn't like the idea of leaving Louise alone for too long.

Back in its heyday, the manor must have been the pride and joy of her bourgeoisie owners, a statement to their wealth and social status, elegant and secluded, hidden behind a wall of willow trees, and right on the water. But now, it looked more like the postcard for decay, a decrepit withered specter, standing alone and forgotten in the middle of a sea of tall dry grass, slowly rotting away.

The interior looked like Vincent Price and Tim Burton decide to decorate the Blair witch's summer house. Boarded up windows, water damage Rorschach stains, cobwebs dangling from every corner and peeling wallpaper gave testament to how far the mighty had fallen.

What few pieces of furniture remained were covered up with yellowing sheets, like bargain bin ghosts.

Killer Frost stirred in bed, torn between her desire to get up and the fact that every inch of her body throbbed in pain, but at least she was pretty sure nothing was broken, which was some kind of a miracle considering what she had been through in the last couple of days.

She had no idea where she was or what time it was, but from a quick glance at a nearby window, she could see it was dark outside and realized she had slept through the whole day. Slowly, thirst, hunger, and other bodily functions began stirring as well, demanding her attention, so she sat up, sighed and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands.

This was the second time in less than forty-eight hours she had woken up beaten and bruised after a run-in with the law and it was getting old real fast.

"Shark?"

She called out and was surprised at how feeble her own voice sounded, so she cleared up her throat and tried again, a little louder.

"Shark, you there?"

Her calls were met with dead silence, which meant that either he was in another room where he couldn't hear her, perhaps downstairs or he was...not there, suddenly the realization of being injured and stranded in a strange place hit her and made her stomach turn into a tight knot, and she had to remind herself

 _"_ _Shark wouldn't leave me alone in danger, not after all we've been through."_

She remembered how the world had turned on itself and fallen apart around them and how he looked at her right in the eyes and asked her to trust him, even though trust was a commodity rarely traded amongst the likes of them, but he had assured her he would get them out of that death trap and would keep her safe, and so far he had made good on his word.

 _"_ _I'm still alive and in one piece, that's all that matters."_ Frost reminded herself.

As her sight gradually adjusted to the darkness she was in, she started making out shapes around her. She was pretty sure she was in the master bedroom of a fancy old house, or at least it smelled like an old house, musty and unaired, like an attic.

She didn't hear traffic or any other man-made sounds for that matter, so to her, that meant she was in a rural area, outside of town.

 _"_ _First thing's first, I need to find a light, a flashlight, a candle, something."_

Frost had a hunch there was no working electricity in the house, an educated guess to be exact. She was no stranger to squatting in abandoned buildings, and from personal experience she knew that services like electricity and running water were the first ones to go when a building was abandoned, but still mostly out of habit she reached out towards where the nightstand should be and was surprised when her fingers almost knocked over what felt like a vase or some kind of lamp, but it didn't have an opening like a vase would, and it didn't have a cable coming out of its bottom like a lamp should.

"What...the hell is this?" She wondered out loud as she explored its surface. It had a bulbous body of what seemed glass, a metallic handle on top and on its flat metal bottom it had a small knob…

"A lantern! It's a lantern Louise, duh."

She pulled the lantern close to her and turned the knob all the way and as she did, light filled the room and for the first time, she was able to take a good look at where she was.

"Ooookay...I guess I should be expecting Shaggy, Velma and the rest of the gang to come in and bust me at any moment."

Frost had been right, she was in the dilapidated master bedroom of, judging by what was left of the decor, a fancy old manor. Not even when this house was brand new and shiny would she have liked it, it was too pretentious and frilly, too much of "Barbie's dream house" for her taste.

"More like Barbie's nightmare on Elm Street house now. Ha! Why is it am always funny when there's no one around to appreciate it?"

But at least the bed she was in, a canopy bed, of course, seemed clean...ish?

Not really, now that she was shedding some light on it, she noticed that the bedding looked old, tattered and mismatched. Also, it was covered in some kind of grind, and there was a scrap of paper on the pillow beside hers.

"Ew...I'm grateful for the shelter Shark, but you could have cleaned up a bit, at least thrown out this old wrapper." But as she picked up the paper to toss it out of the bed, Frost realized it wasn't a piece of trash at all, but in fact, a handwritten note addressed to her.

"Louise, I went out to get supplies.

I'll be back soon.

Shark"

No one could ever accuse her friend of not being succinct.

"Okay, that answers one question." but the note didn't say when "soon" was, not that it really mattered because she had no way of telling what time it was. Frost sat on the bed and pondered her options, while she scratched herself.

"Great, bedbugs, the perfect icing on the crap cake that has been my life lately." Louise growled.

Her options as they were, were to stay in bed with the bugs or get up and explore, and now that she was fully awake and in possession of a lantern, the prospect of getting out of bed and wandering around was becoming more and more appealing by the second.

Frost leaned over the bed, and with lantern in hand scanned the surrounding area for her boots.

"Cause there's not a snowball's chance in hell I'm walking around this dump barefoot."

It took her a minute to find them, they were by the foot of the bed but were covered in so much dirt and so many scuff marks that they were almost unrecognizable, nonetheless she picked them up and slipped them on, but as soon as she stood up the room started spinning around her and her legs wobbled and gave out on her.

"WOAH!"

Each nerve ending came alive with a blinding pain. It hurt so much it made her feel dizzy if she had even a scrap of food in her stomach she was sure she would be throwing it up right now. For a while all she could do was try to breathe through the pain, sprawled beside the bed like a broken doll, she gasped and wheezed trying her best not to pass out, all the while thinking how lucky she was that Shark wasn't here to see her like this, weak and pathetic… _"NO! That's not me, not anymore, never again!"_

Frost forced herself up by sheer will power, and with every shaky step she took her body felt like it would shatter and fall apart, but still, she put one foot in front of the other, slowly, greeting her teeth into a grimace.

 _"_ _I'm alive and in one piece, that's all that matters. In a day or two, I'll be good as new."_

She reassured herself over and over again, like a mantra.

When she was confident that her legs wouldn't fail her again, she took a hold of the lantern again and started making her way across the room, which was rather large, easily one hundred and eighty square feet.

Come to think of it, the bed she woke up in was a full king size.

 _"_ _This must be where Shark sleeps. A king bed for a King Shark, how appropriate"_

She thought, mildly amused by her play on words.

As large as the room was, it looked even larger due to the lack of furniture in it. Besides the canopy bed there were a couple of small wooden crates turned on their side playing the part of nightstands, an old dresser partially covered by a yellowing sheet, with a few old paperback novels, some scattered batteries, probably dead resting on top, three or four garbage bags filled with who-knows-what were piled between two windows.

One the windows had a makeshift bedsheet curtain which hung haphazardly from a rusty curtain rod, her twin, lacking a rod to call her own had several old newspaper sheets scotched to the glass surface.

 _"_ _How crackhouse chic."_

Frost cautiously peeked outside one of the windows, but all she could make out in the dark were willow trees and a field of tall grass, so she stepped away, and as she turned she came face to face with an intruder.

He or she stood in the doorway, the light from his/her lantern obscuring his/her features.

It took Frost less than two seconds to go from completely startled to her fight or flight response kicking in, which in her case was almost always fight.

Still holding the lantern in her left hand, her right hand went up, a reflex, and icicles shot from it, impaling themselves in the door frame, missing her target by just a couple of inches, probably because of the gut wrenching pain that burst from her hand and travelled up her arm the second she used her powers, which made her double over and gasp in pain, but instead of letting go of the lantern she dropped to her knees, making herself smaller, and only then did she release the lantern, making sure it didn't shatter when it hit the floor.

It's amazing how many thoughts can run through a person's mind in just a couple of seconds, ranging from _"Who the hell is that?!"_ to _"Fuck, fuck, fuckitty fuck, it hurts so baaaaaad!"_ and _"Whatever you do, don't drop the lantern, but the light is a dead giveaway, what do I do? Do I kill the light? But if I do, I'm left in the dark...god, that was a shitty shot. I know, drop to the floor, that way the lantern is safe, and then duck for cover, and then...oh no, I think I'm completely tapped out, I need to find some kind of weapon, a blunt object or something. Shark, where the hell are you?!"_

All of them at the same time, all the while knowing that the next decision you make will determine if you live or die right then and there.

 _"_ _But he/she doesn't know I'm empty...fuck it._

Freeze asshole! The first one was just a warning shot, make one move and I will put an icicle through your gut and watch you die slowly!"

There she crouched, trying to look as menacing as her words sounded, trying not to pant and not let her hands tremble while she pointed them at the intruder.

Maybe it worked, because he or she had dropped to the floor and frozen in place, until she couldn't keep her right hand up anymore, the feeling of pins and needles too painful to bare, she had to drop her hand and pull it close to her body, only then did the intruder move, ever so slightly.

"Who are you? What do you want?" But the intruder didn't answer, he/she just stared at her in silence.

Another tense moment stretched between the two of them until Frost waved at him/her with her left hand.

"Hello?"

Although she couldn't really see the intruder well, she saw movement that resembled her own, then she slowly began reaching for her lantern so she could shed some light on this creep, never taking her eyes off the person standing in the doorway.

The intruder moved again, it was just as slow and cautious as her own movements, which was actually quite nerve wrecking, and although she always did and always would consider herself a rational person, despite what other people might think of her sanity, now that she found herself in this creepy, abandoned house in the middle of nowhere, facing a faceless intruder who seemed to only want to mess with her head, instead of openly attacking her, she was beginning to feel very much like she was in an interrupted state of reality, in which she somehow became part of a horror movie.

 _"_ _Oh, did you pick the wrong girl to mess with buddy, I'm no scream queen, I'm the one that makes the Mike Myers and the Jason Voorhees of the world scream and wet themselves...now if I could just see your face…"_

Her fingers were ice burnt and sore, and the simple task of grasping the handle of the lantern became tricky, but Frost pushed through the pain as she always had, she grabbed and dragged the lantern towards her, right at the same time the intruder pulled his/her own lantern as well.

Frost tilted her head slightly to the left "What the...fuck?"

Acting on impulse she pulled her lantern over her head, in perfect unison with the intruder.

"You gotta be..." Then to the right, again in unison...

"Freaking..." And then to the left, in unison again...

"KIDDING ME! IT'S A MIRROR?! IT'S A GODDAMN MIRROR?!"

Frost stood up, lantern in hand and walked over to the door with her other hand extended until it touched the cold glass surface of a full-length mirror attached to the face of either a bathroom or a closet door.

"Ha...haha...AHAHAAHAAA!"

Frost had to put down the lantern before she knocked it against the mirror, that's how hard she was laughing, and for a moment everything else, the fact that she was in an abandoned house all by herself in god knows where, that she was hungry and hurt, and that in the last twenty-four hours she had not only escaped police custody but also managed to level an entire police station, just faded away, and she laughed uncontrollably.

She couldn't remember the last time she laughed so hard, one arm on the door's frame to steady herself and the other holding her midsection.

"HAHAHAHA! It's a mirror, I-I HAHAHAHA! I was just in a-a HAHAHA Mexican standoff with my own HAHAHA reflection! AHAHA...Oh, ah...need...to...breathe..."

Her belly started to ache from the intense bout of laughter, and she tried her best to catch her breath.

"Ha...ow...haha...ah...ha...ohoho, ok, ok...hahaha."

But she just couldn't stop laughing, It was like the floodgates had been opened and now she couldn't for the life of her stop.

"Maybe HAHAHA I'm HAHAHA having a HAHAHA nervous breakdown HAHAHA..."

That made her think of Harley Quinn and she wondered how the little psycho-doormat managed to laugh like that all day long and not die of exertion.

Oddly enough, thinking of Harley did the trick and she was able to stop laughing long enough to breathe and wipe away the tears running down her cheeks.

"Oh, man, I must look like some kind of a mess right now."

Frost pulled up the lantern beside her face and took a good look at herself in the mirror, but the woman who looked back at her she did not recognize.

"No wonder I freaked out at my own reflection..." All the mirth gone from her now quickly replaced with shock.

Her usually feathery and exuberant silver blue hair was now a matted, dirty mess, which she couldn't even run her fingers through.

The rest of her was in no better shape, covered in different layers of filth, ranging from dried blood, hers and from other donors, soot, sweat, mud and all kinds of dirt, all plastered on top of an extensive road map of cuts and bruises covering the length of her body.

 _"_ _No wonder I felt itchy..."_ She thought as it dawned on her that the filth on the bed she woke in actually came from her.

Frost traced her fingers over her face following the trails her tears had made in the dirt, which only made her look more helpless and pathetic.

 _"_ _No. No. No! this isn't me...this is what a victim looks like, not...not me..."_

Louise shook her head and looked away, wanting to escape her own reflection she turned the knob, pushed the door open and walked into a big lavish bathroom.

Well, once upon a time it had been a lavish bathroom, now it just looked like the kind of room you might wake up in after a bender, in a tub filled with ice, missing a kidney or two, next to a telephone and a note telling you to call nine one one.

The large mirror above the peach colored quartz vanity greeted her with the same dismal image. She walked around the bathroom past the also peach colored bidet and the peach corner bathtub which was covered in some kind of dark brown substance, probably just rust and gunk, but really it looked more like someone had dismembered and drained a body there, and knowing who was staying here, that might very well be the case.

That's when she stumbled upon a remarkable discovery in the toilet. Because it lacked a lid, the light from the lantern reflected on the water.

"Wait, there's water? _Of course, there's water, Shark's a shark, he needs water. He didn't reconnect the power because lights in an abandoned house would attract attention, but he did reconnect the main water supply..._ oh, Shark, I could kiss you right now."

Frost put down the lantern, unclasped the high neck of her leotard and pulled it down to her knees, followed by a masterful rendition of the "Dive-club-bathroom-hover-over-toilet-to-pee" maneuver. She saw no toilet paper, but in her current deplorable state she didn't care much, besides, life is always better with an empty bladder.

"Now, that's gotta be a bumper sticker."

She pulled her leotard back up and pulled the lever down, and much to her satisfaction it flushed without a hitch.

"Well, if something was gonna work for me today, I'm glad it was the toilet."

Her spirits mildly lifted thanks to her unencumbered bladder, Frost decided to push her luck and walked back over to the vanity, lantern in hand which she placed by her side before she turned the faucet on.

The red or hot water handle didn't work, but the blue or cold water handle did, although only a weak stream came out, she was able to wash her hands, and was contemplating on how she could go about washing the rest of herself this way, when something in the mirror caught her eye.

This time it wasn't an "intruder", but the reflection of the shower that was right behind her, and the red bath sheet that hung over the shower door, which made her turn around and walk over to it.

She touched it, it felt dry. She pulled it close to her face, it smelled clean…

 _"_ _I hope Shark doesn't mind me using his towel."_

Frost looked inside the shower, it was dingy and had missing tiles, but at least it didn't have any brownish mystery gunk in it, also in one of the corners she discovered a generic brand bottle of shampoo and a bar of soap. She had all the elements she needed to take a shower, all except hot water.

Now, no one could ever accuse Killer Frost of being frail or soft, but everyone has weaknesses, even her, and although she is the undisputed Ice wielder (suck it Captain Cold!) what most people don't understand is that her powers don't come from thin air, they in fact came from heat, meaning that she needs a heat source to fuel her powers, and if she finds herself in a depleted or injured state, both of which she is in now, cold water might in fact harm her.

 _"_ _On the one hand, I have showered in lock up and survived, and that's real cold water, so how much harm can this do to me? On the other hand, the showers in lock up were brief and I suspect intended to keep me weak..."_ As Frost tried to make up her mind, she glanced back at the mirror and took another look at herself.

"Screw it, I'm not looking like an extra from The Walking Dead a minute longer."

She reached into the shower and turned the faucet on. After a couple of seconds she heard the pipes moan and groan like she had just kicked the old house in the balls, but nonetheless, water began to pour out, and Frost started to undress.

She tossed her sleeves and leotard in the sink behind her leaving her boots and stalkings by the shower door, next to the lantern, and then she stepped into the shower.

The water was cold, not freezing cold, this was Florida after all, but she still winced when it hit her skin, so she pulled away from the stream and began lathering herself quickly while she bounced and huffed in place.

She tried not using her nails at first, but the grime was like painted on her, the blood clinging to her limbs, and the cold water wasn't helping, so she had to scrub to get it out, and every cut and bruise on her body came alive at her harsh touch. She tried gritting her teeth, but it's hard to do when they're chattering. Then she focused on her hair, and as many times before was grateful to herself for keeping it short.

Frost had wondered now and then how other women in her field managed to wreak havoc and still have the time to maintain their long hair. She didn't know each and every female super criminal in the US, contrary to popular belief they weren't some kind of sorority, and didn't hang out together, but she did know some of the more renowned ones, and most of them kept their hair long and splendid looking.

She, on the other hand, cut her own hair, and as long as it didn't get in her eyes or become a hassle to care for, she would let it be, just washing it, drying it with a towel and using a really great coconut leave in conditioner to keep it in line.

 _"_ _So, either there's a metahuman Pantene power I got screwed out of, or these women are spending waaay too much time on their looks...I on the other hand, lacking my leave in conditioner am gonna look like the Pink Panther after he comes out of the dryer...wait, was the Pink Panther a he or a she?..."_

Frost entertained her shower thoughts while she finished with her hair and braced herself for the misery that would be rinsing herself off.

 _"_ _Just think warm thoughts Louise, wildfires, erupting volcanoes, rivers of lava...the surface of the sun..."_ Frost told herself as she stepped under the water stream.

She was glad to notice, when she looked down, that the sudsy water being shed was coming out brown, which meant that she was getting clean.

"Unless..."

Frost cupped her hands together under the shower stream and examined its content for a moment, it looked clear and potable enough under the dim light, and for a second she considered drinking it, but on second thought...

 _"_ _I have enough on my plate right now without adding water-borne illness to it."_

"Ok, I'm done, this is as clean as I'm gonna get without hot water."

She declared, turning the faucet off and reaching for Shark's ginormous towel, which felt nicer and cleaner than she would have expected it to be. She stood shivering and huffing while she gently patted herself dry.

Now that she was clean, she could appreciate the full extent of her injuries, so she stepped closer to the lantern and started assessing the damage.

She did look and feel a lot better now, but she also could see the roadmap of cuts and bruises stretching all over her naked body clearly.

Because of her particular Metahuman composition, when hurt she didn't bleed much or even bruise that much for that matter, and under the right circumstances she would heal quickly, the downside to this was that it was easy to underestimate the severity of her wounds, so she prodded and poked with her fingers the nastiest looking cuts to determine their depth.

The pain of her torn flesh brought back half processed memories of how her injuries came to be, like out of a dream, no not a dream, a nightmare in which she was buried alive under tons of rubble.

She knew the only reason she could still count herself amongst the living instead of being buried alive or being transferred to Belle Reve was because of King Shark, who had kept his word and kept her alive and safe, to the extent that one of the worst cuts on her wasn't from the cave-in, but the one she made herself to her inner thigh to help sell her performance to the deputy back at the sheriff's station, so she could escape her cell. And now she started to wonder how much pain did King Shark have to endure to make sure she was almost unharmed.

"How much of the dry blood I washed off myself was your blood Shark?" Louise whispered as she recalled the color of the water at the bottom of the shower.

Not happy with her current train of thought, Frost stepped out of the shower, still wrapped in Shark's red bath sheet while she ran her fingers through her damp hair over and over again, only stopping to pick up her stockings and examine them against the light.

"Well, these are a total loss, just like my sleeves." She unhappily sighed "The thermal strips are completely ruined" and balled them up, and tossed them in the sink with her sleeves and leotard, which she next examined by holding the elastic fabric against the light of the lantern.

"I might be able to recycle these strips and the battery looks...Oookaaay."

She assessed the Wigner–Seitz cell like construction which encased a blue round crystal on the front of her leotard.

"But I really should try to clean it up a bit before I put it back on, or my shower will have been for nothing."

Frost placed the lantern next to the sink, then walked back to the shower to pick up the bar of soap, and walked back to the sink, turned the water on and carefully began splashing water on her leotard and gently rubbing the bar of soap against the impermeable fabric.

She stood there trying to salvage her trademark leotard, she had others of course back at her place, but if you're in the super-criminal game you need to look the part, which means either you become very skillful with a sewing machine, which she wasn't, or you deal with the fact that you are gonna spend tens of thousands of dollars on outfits and accessories over the span of your career.

Now, her outfit looked simple enough, just your average leotard that you might find at the local sports store in the figure skating or gymnastics section, right? Wrong.

First of all, the material is a memory fabric, ideal if you want to wear something that fits you like a glove and doesn't ride up or chafe. It's also waterproof, and cryo and thermal-resistant, and to top it off, her stockings, sleeves, and leotard have a framework of thermal strips embedded all over them and connected to a battery at the center of her chest, that harness and distributes heat, in other words, not cheap.

There are no Macy's for super criminals, which means that if you didn't make it yourself, you need to buy it from a very specialized provider, the kind of person who not only has the skills and discretion necessary, but also doesn't mind working for some of the most dangerous, deranged and depraved members of society, in other words, even more not cheap.

"And people think I make a killing robbing banks and doing merc work, ha! I should be that lucky."

Slowly the dirt started to wash off and Frost had to remind herself that she couldn't just soak her leotard, not if she wanted to wear it right away and gave out an exasperated growl, she wasn't known for her patience.

"Out, damned spot! out, I say!" she quoted Lady Macbeth in her best affected English accent.

She held up her leotard focusing on another stain and couldn't help but think of how it got there, and like that, her thoughts wandered back to the day before again, when she had been sure it would be her last…

She sat on Shark's lap inside the smoke filling cell and tried her best not to fall apart in the face of certain death.

Shark wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.

"Look at me, Louise. I promise you this is not the last time we see each other, we're gonna get out of here, alive and...maybe not unharmed, but we are gonna make it."

She really did want to believe him, but she couldn't see a way out of this one.

She looked up into his dark eyes and asked: "How?"

Half expecting his comforting words to be just that, words with no means of backing them up.

"The way I see it...we only have one chance of getting outta here alive, we stick to our original plan, you freeze the ceiling in here and I wreck it apart."

Frost stared at him wide eyed and shook her head.

"No! You don't understand, I already compromised the structural integrity of the ceiling out there, if I do it again in here the whole building will come down on us, and I'm no architect, but I'm pretty sure that's a load bearing wall behind me. Besides, I don't think I have it in me to do it again...No, no, I won't do it!" She stressed by crossing her arms as to brace herself from being coerced.

"Listen to me Louise, this is the only way to get outta here alive" He spoke to her gently.

"You don't understand! If I do this we will either be crushed to death or buried alive."

Frost waved her arms in a downward spiral motion as she spoke as to emphasize her point.

"No! We won't, I know I can survive the building falling on us, and I will protect you with my body."

Frost hesitated and bit her lower lip "I...No...I... It doesn't even matter because I can't do it again." She sounded so tired as she spoke the last part.

"You have to if you want us to live to see another day you need to push yourself beyond your pain and fear and bring this building down on those fuckers out there. If you do that, I will do the rest and keep you safe, I promise.

I know you can do this, the question is, do you trust me to keep my promise and keep you safe? Do you? Louise…?"

Right then and there it came to her, the memory of that time at Arkham, the walkway, the SCU pricks shooting at them and Shark putting his life in her hands...

As on cue, another blast hit outside the now very hot metal door, the whole cell trembled and the only light in the room went out.

Shark couldn't see her face in the dark and after a while, he wondered if maybe she was quietly crying, but was surprised instead to hear a dry titter coming from her.

"Fuck it. If it were easy anyone would do it. Hell yeah! Let's go out swinging."

Frost stood up and stepped over Shark's legs, walking into the dark with her arms extended in front of her.

"Ok, let's get to it. How's about a piggy back ride?"

She sounded almost cheerful like they were about to move some furniture around and then share a pizza, instead of trying to collapse a whole building on themselves.

 _"_ _If this is how I go out, I am at least taking every goddamned, worthless, good ole boy, cowboy wannabe cop in this police station shaped toilet with me to hell."_

Frost thought bitterly as she pushed her fear out of the way to make room for her wrath, but her thoughts were interrupted by the feeling of Shark's large hands firmly wrapping themselves around her waist and hoisting her up like she was no heavier than a house cat, he then once again carefully placed her on his shoulder.

"You can see me in the dark?" Frost wondered if that was another one of his many strengths, he was such a predator.

"No, not 'see', I can just sense your movements. Are you ready?"

"Not even a little bit, but let's do it."

Frost poured every ounce of herself into her task, trying hard not to think of the outcome.

"I...I don't regret seeing you either" Shark's awkward voice broke the silence.

"Huh?" Frost glanced down at the out of context comment.

"You said before that you didn't regret seeing me one last time, and I told you, this won't be the last time we see each other, but still, I don't regret it, seeing you I mean."

"Oh...ok. Shark?"

"Yeah?"

"I do trust you."

"...Oh. Ok."

And to her surprise she really did trust him, as much as she was capable of trusting someone, sadly it didn't keep her from feeling terrified and exhausted.

As she tried to funnel the growing heat around them into her powers she soon began to feel overwhelmed and lightheaded.

"Shark?"

"Yeah?"

"It's working, but I-I might..."

"Faint?"

"I don't faint. I might...pass out."

Shark's only response was to hold her tighter, pressing the side of his face against her hip.

After a while, her lightheadedness turned into a strange kind of buzz from the lack of oxygen and the exertion from intaking heat and immediately out-taking freezing cold.

She suddenly felt very light, like she was filled with helium, and even a bit giddy. Her head fell backward and was about to let herself go and float away into a warm sea of darkness when she was jolted back into reality by Shark's firm grasp on her, who as soon as he felt her faltering caught her before she could hit the ground.

"I got you. Ok, that's enough."

"Mmmm, no, not enough, I mean not yet…" She whispered, pressing her right hand against her forehead trying to keep herself awake and coherent.

"Louise…" Shark began to say in a scolding tone...

"Hey! I don't tell you how to scare the crap out Richard Dreyfuss, so don't you tell me how to do my job...just prompt me up against, well yourself and let me finish what I started…besides, I don't think I wanna be awake for what's coming."

Shark hesitated, but complied and once again pulled her up, but this time, holding her up by the waist like a doll.

Frost looked up and stared at her reflection again, she was gonna have to trim her hair to fix the burnt edges and even it out.

 _"_ _I can't believe I'm still alive. I wonder how many more by the skin of my teeth escapes I have in me..."_

She shook her head like a wet dog, trying to shake away those unhappy thoughts. Without her leave in conditioner she thought she looked kinda like a dandelion.

She really hated reminiscing about close calls, the whole idea behind becoming metahuman was to never feel powerless and vulnerable again, to live her life on her terms, and to do right by a friend, of course, her only friend.

 _"_ _You said before that you didn't regret seeing me one last time, and like I told you, this won't be the last time we see each other, but still, I don't regret it, seeing you I mean."_

A smile crossed her lips, not her only friend, not anymore, she thought as she remembered Shark's voice in the dark encouraging her while she sat, perched on his broad shoulder.

Her recollections after that, were hazy, which was fine with her, a building collapsing on her was one of several memories she didn't need to hold onto, if only she could forget about Amanda Waller, the Suicide Squad, the bomb in the back of her neck, and Arkham Asylum the same way.

The image of Shark's head being blown off flashed through her mind and she involuntarily flinched at the uninvited thought.

 _"_ _Stop it! All that is blood under the bridge, it can't hurt me unless I let it...besides, Shark's alive and well, and...alive, how is he alive after having his head blown off? And is it me or is he taking forever? I just hope he remembers to bring food...the non Soilent Green kind."_

It was almost one in the morning when Shark made a beeline across the tall grass field leading up to the old abandoned manor he was squatting in. While he trotted he sang at the top of his lungs:

"IIIIIII'M A SHARK, I'M A SHARK, I'M A SHARK...I'M A SHARRRRRRK! HA!

I'M A SHARK, I'M A SHARK, A MOTHERLOVING SHAAAAARK!"

Until he reached the back door.

Once inside the manor, he piped down, not knowing if Louise was awake and not wanting to wake her if she wasn't.

The house seemed just as he left it, dark and quiet, and on his way to the main staircase he picked up one of the flashlights he kept around the place. As he climbed up the stairs, two steps at a time the boards creaked beneath his feet and threatened to give in under his weight, but he didn't mind them one bit, he was too happy to be home with the supplies Louise needed, and soon she would be a-ok, and then...

 _"_ _And then...what?"_

Shark never had much use for plans on the count of him being more of the "spur of the moment" kinda guy. If hungry he would hunt and eat, if in need for a place to crash he would either find an abandoned building like this manor and squat in it or stay in some fly bag motel, if he needed money he would steal it from his prey, or if bored or in a pinch he would do some merc work, his life was uncomplicated and untethered and he liked it that way. But now there was Louise, and she complicated everything.

He could tell she was stubborn and used to getting her way, she also needed things like antiseptic, bandages, painkillers, food and water, the kind that you need to buy at a store, she was... _fragile_.

The thought of Louise kicking him in square in the balls, every time they met crossed his mind, and how she held her own against the sheriff's men as well.

 _"_ _No, not fragile, just...complicated, but never fragile."_

And now he found himself wondering what she would do once she was strong enough to do as she pleased, probably go home, but where was home? Was she just passing through Florida when she got busted or were they somehow neighbors?

But the question that was really eating him up was:

 _"_ _Would she like a partner? Cause I could move...Nah, don't get your hopes up Shark, Louise seems like the kind of gal that has her own plans, emphasis on the "s", as in a plan A, plan B, and a backup plan C just in case, and likely not a huge fan of playing it by ear._

 _She probably doesn't need some shark cramping her style..._ sigh."

Shark pondered all of this as he walked into the master bedroom which was as dark, if not darker than as when he left. He shone his flashlight towards the foot of the bed and slowly made his way up not wanting to shine a bright light on Louise's face and startle her awake, but to his surprise the bed was empty.

He looked closer and noticed that the lantern he left for her was gone as well, the beam of light traveled across the headboard and pillows and he saw that the note he left her was now in a different place.

 _"_ _Louise found the lantern and my note, so she knows I went out to get supplies."_

Shark dropped the bags on the bed and shone the light around the room.

 _"_ _She wouldn't have gone out to look for me, Would she? Maybe she was more hurt then I thought, maybe she woke up and was disoriented and went out...?"_

The idea of Louise wondering gator country in the middle of the night, hurt and all by herself was alarming, to say the least, no matter how much of a badass she was.

Louise held her leotard up once again and took a good look at it.

 _"_ _Nice. My patience really paid off. It's still a bit wet, I really should wait before I-what was that?"_

It sounded like creaking floorboards and footsteps, there was someone walking around the bedroom.

 _"_ _It must be Shark..."_

But just in case, she decided to wait and make sure before announcing her presence, being low on cryogenics and naked, it seemed like the sensible thing to do.

 _"_ _No, Louise is too smart to do that, maybe she's somewhere in the house._

Louise, I'm back, where are you? LOUISE YOU THERE?! LOU-"

Shark's heart sunk into his stomach, as his flashlight shone against the bathroom door he could see a couple of icicles embedded in the wood next to the mirror, glistening under the light.

 _"_ _LOUISE!"_

All sorts of horrible scenarios crossed Shark's mind in the span of two seconds. Sure, the room looked just as he left it, there was no blood, no other signs of trouble, but the icicles were a clear indication that something had gone down.

Stealthy like a shadow she glided towards the door, senses sharp like razors, lantern in hand…

Then his gaze dropped to the floor and he noticed a slit of light coming from under the bathroom door. _"Someone's in there, and if it were Louise she would have answered as soon as she heard me calling, and here I was thinkin I was gonna miss dinner…"_

Relief washed over her as soon as she heard Shark's guttural voice calling her name. She opened her mouth to call back while she reached for the door, but right then she felt a tug that pulled her towel almost completely off.

"I'm in he-the hell?!"

She turned and realized her towel got caught on the edge of the shower door when she slid over to get closer to the door.

"Damn it!" Frost hissed as she tugged on the fabric still holding the lantern, and tried to wrap it around her naked body once more, and just as she fumbled with it, the bathroom door blew wide open, or to be more accurate, it was blown to pieces, just inches away from her left side.

It all happened so fast, bits of wood rained down on her, as she winced and pressed herself against the cold tile wall. She dropped the lantern and it shattered into a million pieces as it hit the floor, her hand went up in a heartbeat ready to blast whatever ice she had left in her, not even stopping to think how much it would hurt if she tried, her other hand clutching her towel in place around her chest, when she realized that the massive figure leaping into the bathroom belonged to King Shark, her hand immediately recoiled…

His predatory instincts taking over, he kicked the bathroom door open like it was a movie prop and as the bits flew everywhere he jumped in sideways, ready to tear apart anyone who got in his way.

Shark was out for blood "If you hurt my Louise, I'm gonna introduce you to a whole new universe of pain..." but before he could finish his thought a startled yelp made him turn around, claws first, and face…

"Louise?"

"SHARK IT'S ME DON'T-!"

Louise cringed, closing her eyes half expecting to be shredded before she could finish her sentence...but there was no pain, and as she clung to dear life and to that towel, she opened her eyes and looked up, realizing that she was pinned under King Shark, her back against the wall, between the shower and the bathroom door. Shark stood over her, panting, his weight resting on both his hands, like two pillars which were prompted on both sides of herself encasing her between them.

She stared at him, wide-eyed, well aware of what a close call this had been.

 _"_ _Talk about being caught between a shark and a hard place."_

 _ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo_

 _Red Apple cigarettes are a nod to the Quentin Tarantino Universe because when I started writing this fanfiction I wondered if a universe were hyper-violence was so common it was even mixed with comedy and yet people still managed to live in it without freaking out about it was possible, and then I remembered the Tarantinoverse._

 _When reading the part about King Shark singing it might be helpful to know that the tune that inspired it is the map song from Dora the Explorer._


End file.
